OLYMPICS; Vancouver Wins 2010 Winter Olympics by 3-Vote Margin

Vancouver was selected as the site of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games today in a vote by the International Olympic Committee, defeating Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Salzburg, Austria, to bring the Games to Canada for the third time.

''It was a photo finish,'' Jean Chrétien, the prime minister of Canada, said at a news conference after the vote at the Hilton Hotel here. ''That's what's great about sport, but winning is winning.''

It took two rounds of balloting to determine the outcome. In the first round, Pyeongchang topped Vancouver, 51 to 40; Salzburg received 16 votes, eliminating it from the competition. Because the 51 votes for Pyeongchang were not a majority, the I.O.C. went to a second round, with Vancouver defeating Pyeongchang, 56 to 53.

''Ahead doesn't matter unless you win,'' said Un Yong Kim, an influential I.O.C. member from South Korea. ''But we did our best. We did very well.''

The selection of Vancouver could hinder New York City's chances of winning the 2012 Summer Games if the I.O.C. proves reluctant to award the Games twice in a row to a North American city, although it did so before (Montreal in 1976 followed by Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980, and Los Angeles in 1984 followed by Calgary, Alberta, in 1988). In 1932 both the Winter (Lake Placid) and Summer (Los Angeles) Games were held in the United States.

Dr. Jacques Rogge, the I.O.C.'s president, has discounted the notion of an unofficial geographic rotation.

New York's deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, Daniel L. Doctoroff, was part of the city's three-member delegation here. ''We were agnostic about the outcome of the vote,'' he said. ''It's not a negative from our perspective. I do believe the Olympic movement makes its decisions based on which cities will host the best Games, and which city will best advance its ideals and values.''

Standing in the sweltering hotel lobby, swarming with contingents from all three 2010 bid cities, he said, ''It's a little intimidating to know that in two years this will be us.''

The selection of Vancouver pleased NBC Sports, which agreed last month to pay $820 million for the rights to the 2010 Winter Games and nearly $1.2 billion for the 2012 Summer Games. A North American Games means much of the competition will be carried live in the United States, nearly guaranteeing higher ratings than a mostly taped European or Asian Games.

''Did I think it would be three votes?'' he said, referring to the margin of victory. ''Absolutely not.''

The strong support for Pyeongchang stunned some I.O.C. members. ''Most important was that first round,'' Ottavio Cinquanta, a member from Italy, said. ''There was no race with Salzburg.''

The voting in the early rounds tends to be volatile. Sydney, Australia, trailed in three of the first four rounds in the voting for the site of the 2000 Summer Games, eventually beating out Beijing by two votes. Vancouver entered the balloting today widely viewed as the favorite, but its margin of victory was surprisingly small over Pyeongchang, a little-known city that is only 60 miles from the demilitarized zone and whose supporters had argued that winning the Olympic bid would help reunify the Koreas.

Even though the balloting was secret, some members said the final result combined several factors: the fundamental strengths of Vancouver's bid; the powerful European voting bloc, the largest in the I.O.C., which may have wanted to wait for the selection of the site for the 2012 Games to designate another European city; and some weaknesses in Salzburg's bid, including some unmet guarantees in its budget and accommodations.

Richard W. Pound, one of three I.O.C. members from Canada, said: ''The Europeans voted strategically. A whole bunch of European capitals want it in 2012, so they didn't want to go for it in 2010.''

Thomas Bach, a German delegate, said, ''It was clear Salzburg was No. 3, and it was confirmed by the evaluation commission report.''

The 14-member evaluation commission, which assessed the qualifications of the cities bidding for the 2010 Games, did not explicitly rank the three cities, but it clearly had the fewest misgivings about Vancouver.

The five European cities lining up to bid for the 2012 Summer Games are London, Paris, Moscow, Madrid and Leipzig, Germany. Other challengers, in addition to New York, include Istanbul and Brazil's entry of Rio de Janeiro or São Paolo.

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London, Paris and Moscow have all been sites of Olympic Games, most recently the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow, which suffered an American-led boycott because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

By Olympic standards, Pyeongchang is a small town, having more in common with Lillehammer and Albertville than Salt Lake City, Vancouver or Turin. Government and bid officials from South Korea recognized that their biggest disadvantage was the city's lack of a world reputation.

The Koreans were thrilled that the evaluation commission had refused to rank the three cities, and with ecstatic fervor pitched themselves as the equal of Vancouver or of Salzburg, the home of Mozart, with its annual music festival and the downhill skier Hermann Maier.

Each of the contending cities made presentations to the members of the I.O.C. before the balloting. When it was the turn of Pyeongchang, the last of the cities to make a multimedia presentation, Kim pleaded to the delegates, ''I now humbly appeal to you to give an opportunity to Pyeongchang.''

Gong Ro Myun, chairman of the city's bid committee, added, ''Please try something different this time,'' a suggestion that it was time to move off the traditional North American-European axis for the Winter Games. The only Asian hosts of the Winter Games have been Nagano, Japan, in 1998, and Sapporo, Japan, in 1972.

Pyeongchang's pitch that the I.O.C. explore the city's ''hidden treasure'' and help it establish itself as the Asian winter sports paradise nearly worked.

Gerhard Heiberg, the chairman of the evaluation commission, said that before his group traveled to Pyeongchang earlier this year, he thought the city was trailing Vancouver and Salzburg. ''But we were very pleasantly surprised,'' he said during a news conference after the vote. ''You had a feeling this is a serious contender.''

Rogge said, ''Pyeongchang is now on the map, and that was not the case before.''

But some I.O.C. delegates said that the strengths of Vancouver's bid, from its security plans to its facilities to its athletes' villages, ultimately provided the edge that led to its selection.

Pyeongchang expects to bid again for the 2014 Winter Games.

''It was based on sport,'' Roland Baar, an I.O.C. member from Germany, said. ''The Austrian bid was cultural, and the Korean bid was too political.''

Baar said of Vancouver's selection: ''I think it was a good choice. They were the most sports-related bid.''

Kevan Gosper, an I.O.C. member from Australia, said, ''Vancouver's bid was deserving, and Pyeongchang was outstanding and very much a surprise.''

The 2010 Games will take place in two areas: within Vancouver and at the Whistler ski area. For the first time, the opening and closing ceremonies will be held indoors, at B.C. Place Stadium.

Vancouver received a financial bonus in the price that NBC will pay to televise the games. ''It exceeded our budget estimate,'' Jack Poole, chairman of the Vancouver bid committee, said. ''We're likely to overachieve on our budget.''

The rapid dispatch of Salzburg seemed to disappoint that city's contingent deeply. Salzburg's Alpine winter sports Mecca is in a compact geographic area, and its plan required the building of the fewest new facilities. Salzburg made an enthusiastic, yet eccentric, presentation to the I.O.C., led by a high-spirited opera singer, Annely Peebo, and ending with another, Grace Bumbry, singing ''Climb Ev'ry Mountain'' from ''The Sound of Music.''

''There are no silver and bronze medals for us,'' Wolfgang Schüssel, Austria's prime minister, said. ''We lost. Our revenge in 2010 will be that our men and women athletes will win many medals.''